The Best Poetry Books of 2022 (A Year-End List Aggregation)

“What are the best Poetry books released in 2022?” We looked at 70 of the top Poetry books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

The top 13 books, all appearing on 2 or more “Best Poetry” book lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear. The remaining 50+ titles, as well as the sources we used, are in alphabetical order on the bottom of the page.

Our other Best Of 2022 Articles:

• The Best Art, Photography, And Coffee Table Books
• The Best AudioBooks
• The Best Biography And Memoir Books
• The Best Graphic Novels And Comics
• The Best Cookbooks
• The Best Fiction Books
• The Best Books (All Catergories)
• The Best History Books
• The Best Kids, Children, and Youth Books
• The Best Mystery, Horror, and Thriller Books
• The Best Nonfiction Books
• The Best Picture Books
• The Best Poetry Books
• The Best Science And Nature Books
• The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Books
• The Best Young Adult Books

Previous Years: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015

Happy Scrolling!

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Top 13 Best Poetry Books From 2022

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12.) 100 Queer Poems written by Mary Jean Chan

Lists It Appears On:

• Our Daily Read
• The Guardian

Andrew McMillan and Mary Jean Chan’s luminous anthology, 100 Queer Poems, is a celebration of thrilling contemporary voices and visionary poets of the…

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11.) Home Is Not A Place written by Roger Robinson, Johny Pitts

Lists It Appears On:

• Our Daily Read
• The Guardian

In 2021, award-winning poet Roger Robinson and acclaimed photographer Johny Pitts rented a red Mini Cooper and decided to follow the coast clockwise i…

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10.) Manorism written by Yomi Sode

Lists It Appears On:

• Our Daily Read
• The Guardian

Impassioned, insightful, electric, Manorism is a poetic examination of the lives of Black British men and boys: propped up and hemmed in by contempora…

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9.) Mothman Apologia written by Robert Wood Lynn

Lists It Appears On:

• NYPL
• The New York Times

Robert Wood Lynn’s collection of poems explores the tensions of youth and the saturation points of knowledge: those moments when the acquisition of un…

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8.) Path of Totality: Poems written by Niina Pollari

Lists It Appears On:

• NYPL
• The New York Times

This collection is about the eviscerating loss of a child, the hope that precedes this crisis, and the suffering that follows. Spare, plain, sometimes…

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7.) Refractive Africa written by Will Alexander

Lists It Appears On:

• Our Daily Read
• The Guardian

The poet is endemic with life itself,” Will Alexander once said, and in this searing pas de trois, Refractive Africa: Ballet of the Forgotten, he has …

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6.) Time Is a Mother written by Ocean Vuong

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Publishers Weekly

In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, embodying the paradox of …

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5.) Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems written by Warsan Shire

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Our Daily Read
• Publishers Weekly

With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stum…

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4.) C+nto and Othered Poems written by Joelle Taylor

Lists It Appears On:

• Our Daily Read
• The Guardian
• Times Of India

The female body is a political space. C+nto enters the private lives of characters from the butch counterculture, telling the inside story of the prot…

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3.) Quiet written by Victoria Adukwei Bulley

Lists It Appears On:

• Our Daily Read
• The Guardian
• The Telegraph

In Quiet, Victoria Adukwei Bulley advances a poetics of balance. The poems collected in these pages mix a technically assured, sonically resonant, sur…

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2.) The Trees Witness Everything written by Victoria Chang

Lists It Appears On:

• NYPL
• Our Daily Read
• The Guardian

In The Trees Witness Everything, Victoria Chang reinvigorates language by way of concentration, using constraint to illuminate and free the wild inter…

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1.) Unexhausted Time written by Emily Berry

Lists It Appears On:

• Our Daily Read
• The Guardian
• The Telegraph

Unexhausted Time inhabits a world of dream and dawn, in which thoughts touch us ‘like soft rain’, and all the elements are brought closer in….

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The 50+ Additional Best Poetry Books Released In 2022

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13) [To] the Last [Be] Human – Jorie Graham List: (Publishers Weekly)
14) A Book About Myself Called Hell – Jared Joseph List: (Large Hearted Biy)
15) Abuela, Don’t Forget Me. – List: (SLJ)
16) Against Heaven: Poems – Kemi Alabi List: (NYPL)
17) Aliquot – List: (The Telegraph)
18) Alive at the End of the World – Saeed Jones List: (Publishers Weekly)
19) All the Men I Never Married – Kim Moore List: (Times Of India)
20) And We Rise: The Civil Rights Movement in Poems. – List: (SLJ)
21) And Yet: Poems – List: (Goodreads)
22) BEYOND BELIEF – List: (The New York Times)
23) BORDER VISTA – List: (The New York Times)
24) Cain Named the Animal – List: (The Telegraph)
25) Call Us What We Carry – List: (Goodreads)
26) Constellation Route – Matthew Olzmann List: (NYPL)
27) Content Warning: Everything – Akwaeke Emezi List: (NYPL)
28) Customs – Solmaz Sharif List: (Publishers Weekly)
29) Deltas – List: (The Telegraph)
30) Dialect of Distant Harbors – Dipika Mukherjee List: (Large Hearted Biy)
31) Ephemeron – List: (The Telegraph)
32) Frank: Sonnets – Diane Seuss List: (Times Of India)
33) Glut – List: (The Telegraph)
34) High Desert – List: (The Telegraph)
35) How to Survive the Apocalypse: Poems – Jacqueline Allen Trimble List: (NYPL)
36) HYPERPHANTASIA – List: (The New York Times)
37) Improvised Explosive Device – List: (The Telegraph)
38) IN THE SAME LIGHT: 200 Poems for Our Century From the Migrants and Exiles of the Tang Dynasty – List: (The New York Times)
39) Inheritance: A Visual Poem. – List: (SLJ)
40) Little Pharma – Laura Kolbe List: (Large Hearted Biy)
41) Magnolia 木蘭 – Nina Mingya Powles List: (Large Hearted Biy)
42) Marrow – darlene anita scott List: (Large Hearted Biy)
43) Marshmallow Clouds: Two Poets at Play Among Figures of Speech. – List: (SLJ)
44) Molière: The Complete Richard Wilbur Translations – List: (The Telegraph)
45) Musical Tables: Poems – List: (Goodreads)
46) O – Zeina Hashem Beck List: (NYPL)
47) Obit – List: (The Telegraph)
48) On Sun Swallowing – List: (Goodreads)
49) Orlam – List: (The Telegraph)
50) Panic Response – List: (The Telegraph)
51) PLEASE MAKE ME PRETTY, I DON’T WANT TO DIE – List: (The New York Times)
52) Poppy – List: (The Telegraph)
53) Punks: New & Selected Poems – John Keene List: (Times Of India)
54) Queering the Green – List: (The Telegraph)
55) Serenity: Poems – List: (Goodreads)
56) So Tall It Ends in Heaven – Jayme Ringleb List: (Large Hearted Biy)
57) Some Integrity – List: (The Telegraph)
58) The Complete Works of WH Auden: Poems, Vol I & II – List: (The Telegraph)
59) The English Summer – List: (Our Daily Read)
60) The Hurting Kind: Poems – Ada Limón List: (NYPL)
61) The Illustrated Woman – List: (Our Daily Read)
62) The Lascaux Notebooks – List: (The Telegraph)
63) The Plum Review – List: (The Telegraph)
64) The Slain Birds – List: (The Telegraph)
65) The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes on – List: (Goodreads)
66) Unlock Your Storybook Heart (You Are Your Own Fairy Tale, #3) – List: (Goodreads)
67) Voices of the People. – List: (SLJ)
68) What Is Otherwise Infinite: Poems – Bianca Stone List: (NYPL)
69) Woman Without Shame: Poems – List: (Goodreads)
70) Yuck, You Suck!: Poems About Animals That Sip, Slurp, Suck. – List: (SLJ)

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10 Best Poetry Book Sources/Lists

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Source	Article
Goodreads	Best Poetry
Large Hearted Biy	Favorite Poetry Collections of 2022
NYPL	Best Books for Adults 2022
Our Daily Read	The best poetry books of 2022
Publishers Weekly	Best Poetry 2022
SLJ	Best Poetry 2022
The Guardian	The best poetry books of 2022
The New York Times	The Best Poetry of 2022
The Telegraph	The 20 best poetry books of 2022 to buy for Christmas
Times Of India	Top poetry books of 2022